


Taking the L

by Likedeadends



Series: 25 days of Johnmas [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, commuters, meet cute?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:13:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27828064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Likedeadends/pseuds/Likedeadends
Summary: Johnny meets Jeno in possibly the least romantic location and still manages to make the best of it.
Relationships: Lee Jeno/Suh Youngho | Johnny
Series: 25 days of Johnmas [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2038778
Comments: 7
Kudos: 46





	Taking the L

Johnny takes the L into the city five days a week. It’s a forty minute trip and allows him to listen to one and a quarter podcasts. When he first started making the commute, he was admittedly one of the assholes that puts their bag on the seat next to them to avoid sitting next to a stranger. 

That changed one day, months ago, when the train was more crowded than usual (some festival going on downtown) and he was forced into a different compartment than he was used to. There were not two empty seats beside each other; but there were two options. 

One was beside an older woman, who was knitting (honest to god knitting), elbows sharp and halfway into the seat next to her. The other was beside a guy that looked about Johnny’s age, blonde with a nice enough smile. He had headphones in which was the only reason Johnny ventured to sit beside him-- he was a serial conversation avoider before 10am. 

He was also a serial wallet misplacer.

That’s how Johnny and Jeno meet. 

“Hello?” Johnny asked, having finally answered his phone after the fifth call from the same unknown number. 

“Hey, is this John?” An unfamiliar voice said down the line. 

“Yeah, who is this?” 

“My name is Jeno. You sat next to me on the train this morning. You left your wallet behind.” 

Johnny quickly regretted his originally short tone. He pat himself down and felt that his pockets were, in fact, empty. He stared down at his free hand accusingly.

“Oh, shit. I keep telling myself I need to get a bag or something..” He mumbled, lacking anything else to say. Was this some sort of blackmail call? He only had about twenty dollars cash in that wallet and his bank card would maybe get another one hundred out.

“Yeah, I get it. Lucky an upstanding young citizen happened upon it.” Jeno said, sounding rather pleased with himself. Johnny waited patiently for the other shoe to drop. “Anyways, do you take that train every morning? I can give it back to you tomorrow?” 

Johnny blinked. 

“Uh.... yeah. Sure, that sounds good.” 

“Cool. See ya then.” 

\--

It turned out that Jeno tracked Johnny down through facebook and got his number from his mother (“You weren’t active! I didn’t know who else to ask!”).

He surprised Johnny by actually showing up to the train the next day. He saved Johnny a seat and smiled in that same kind, handsome sort of way. 

“Thanks, man. You’re a lifesaver.” Johnny said, pocketing the wallet and making a mental note to check through the contents later. 

“No problem. I know I would want someone to do the same for me.” 

\--

It wasn’t intentional that it turned into a _thing_ between them. Johnny just happened to keep getting into that car and Jeno just happened to always have the seat next to him free. 

They didn’t really talk about much when they sat next to each other. Quick acknowledgements when Johnny sat down, pleasantries exchanged, then they settled into their own worlds. 

Things didn’t really change until Johnny sat down one day and Jeno offered him an AirPod. He insisted that Johnny needed to join him listening to the best album he had ever heard. That is how Johnny willingly listened to his first Taylor Swift album. 

Next time, Johnny pulled a thermos from his work bag (newly acquired, much safer for his wallet) and handed it to Jeno-- “I made too much coffee for just me”.

The week after that, they started having actual discussions. Johnny learned that Jeno was a film student and shyly admitted he knew very little about the subject. Jeno learned that Johnny was a first year paralegal and pretended to be interested in legal terms when Johnny asked him for help studying. 

It was an easy friendship that formed. They did not add each other on social media. They did not exchange phone numbers (even though they technically had each other’s after the wallet debacle). They existed in the train car together and then went on to their own lives until they saw each other again. 

Johnny really didn’t think much of it. 

Until he did. 

\--

“So, when are you inviting him over?” Jaehyun asked over dinner one night. 

“Who?”

“The train guy. What’s his name, Yong?” Jaehyun looked at their other roommate. 

Taeyong tried to play innocent, like he didn’t gossip, but he grinned cheshirely and supplied: “Jeno.” 

Johnny had not realized how much he talked about Jeno. He really didn’t think it was enough for his roommates to know of his existence. His cheeks went a shade of red, definitely hot to the touch. 

“You want a stranger in your house?” He tried to deflect. 

“Hardly a stranger.” Taeyong scoffed. 

“Sometimes I think you like him more than me.” Jaehyun pouted. 

“I don’t even know him.” Johnny insisted. 

\--

Johnny was lying. He looked at his spotify playlist (now perfectly curated to fit his and Jeno’s tastes as they headed into the city) and thumbed the lid of the thermos in his bag (now sweetened the way Jeno insisted tasted best) and thought maybe he did know Jeno. 

Jeno handed Johnny a Granny Smith apple when he sat on the train. Maybe Jeno knew him too. Maybe he should do something about it. 

“You excited for Christmas?” Jeno asked, already reaching for the thermos in Johnny’s bag. 

“Yeah, I think I am.” Johnny said. 

\-- 

In the end, Johnny is not the one who asks. 

Jeno, with his big smile and sparkling eyes, followed Johnny off the train in the middle of December. 

“Do you want to go ice skating with me tonight?” He asks, earnestly, one hand steadied on Johnny’s shoulder.

“Sure,” Johnny says, not used to seeing Jeno here, outside of their little bubble. 

“Okay. Meet me here at six?” 

Johnny just nods, awestruck. Jeno’s grin somehow gets bigger, more endearing, and he slips back onto the train before the doors shut. 

\-- 

Johnny is a lot better at sitting on the L than he is at ice skating. Jeno laughs at him every time he falls and only offers his arm to help one every three or four spills. Johnny, pink cheeked and not used to being bad at things, tried his hardest to be a good sport about it. 

When they’re sitting and drinking hot cider together afterwards, Jeno teases Johnny relentlessly then kisses the cinnamon from his pouting mouth. 

“See you tomorrow,” he says when Johnny stands at his stop. 

“Yeah you will.” He grins, squeezing Jeno’s hand in farewell before stepping off. 

Other citydwellers might hate the morning commute, but Johnny wouldn’t trade his for the world.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for 25 days of Johnmas: my own personal challenge to write johnny in a bunch of different ships and aus from now until christmas. sorry if it's a little silly, i'm just having a good time. thanks for reading!


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